How to identify the right founders? How to team them up? How to choose the CEO? How does the magic happen?

Toby Coppel, Co-founder and Partner at Mosaic Ventures, lead the talk of team building of world-conquering companies together with Kat Manalac, Partner at Y Combinator, and Alice Bentinck, Co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Entrepreneur First. Here are their tips to live by when building a world-conquering team:

Make It Founder-Led

Kat Manalac: “We are firm believers in founder-led companies. Sometimes there are questions whether the founder can scale-out the whole way. But even people who didn’t seem formidable in the beginning can grow into it. That’s something we’re really excited about. We’ve also seen some companies where the founders have actually came back, like Reddit.”

Build an MVP

Kat Manalac: “For founders, one thing that can often set you apart is building an MVP (minimum viable product.) Make a simple version of your product and put it out in the world. Then talk with real users and learn something from that interaction. Execute quickly, talk to your users and teach us something new and exciting.”

Limit It To Two Founders…

Alice Bentinck: “We prefer founding teams of only two people. Then communication is a lot easier and there is only one relationship to protect. But when bringing in third, fourth and even fifth co-founder, suddenly the ability to make a decision quickly suffers significantly.”

…And No Co-CEO Teams

Alice Bentinck: “CEO’s role has so much attached to it. So we push people to think whether you wanna be the talker and spend your time selling and fundraising or doer, building the product and building the team. We find the right role for each member of the team, be it CEO or CTO.”

Don’t Clone Yourself

Kat Manalac: “When picking a co-founder, you should think about what are your blind spots and the lacking skills that are needed. So don’t hire a clone of yourself.”

Tap the Undervalued Pools Of Talent

Kat Manalac: “There are so many pools of talented people from all over the world that are undervalued and untapped. Take a look at the diverse workforce. In our portfolio is a company building an app for parents. Their first hire was a pregnant woman. From there they’ve built the team to be a place for mothers and fathers to work. This also keeps them authentic to their customers. Most talented people might be overlooked for different reasons.”

Forget the CEO Myth

Alice Bentinck: “There’s a stereotype of founders being extroverted and charismatic, but there’s a power in technical talent. We have a principle of working with technical founders. It doesn’t really matter if you’re an introvert because a lot of the sales and pitching can be taught. Some of the most successful CEO’s have in America have a deeply technical background, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg for example.”

And the Awkward Truth

Alice Bentinck: “One thing we do is getting talented people out of bad teams. It’s a bit awkward, but it needs to be said.“

Vilma Flinkman

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